An architectural rendering showing a planned multifamily building at the intersection of Ashmun and Canal streets in New Haven. Image courtesy of Svigals + Partners

Five developments were approved by officials in New Haven this week, shortly before the city’s new affordable housing mandate goes into effect.

Like many cities nation-wide, the new “inclusionary zoning” ordinance will require most multifamily buildings to set aside 10 percent of the project’s units at rents affordable to people making 50 percent of area median income. Up to now, however, New Haven multifamily developers had benefited from not having to meet such a bar.

The projects approved by the City Plan Commission Wednesday totaled 475 units:

• Local developer Olympia Properties’ renovation of a 3-story 1974 office building at 142 Temple St. to add four new floors with 60 1-bedroom and studio units. Amenities will include a basement gym and locked, indoor bicycle storage, and the existing office and retail tenants will remain.
• The renovation of much of the 900 Church St. office tower into 87 one-bedroom apartments by PMC Property Group.
• A 5-story, 176-unit apartment building by New Haven-based RJ Development & Advisors on city-owned vacant land at the intersection of Ashmun and Canal streets. The project will rise next to the growing Winchester Works biotech and multifamily cluster.
• 150 apartments at 10 Liberty St. in the city’s Hill neighborhood, currently the site of defunct electrical fixture company’s old warehouses and store. Developers Tanya Segel and Susan Birke Fiedler of Vesta Partners plans to demolish the buildings and replace them with four stories of residential over a parking podium.
• The conversion of a ground-floor retail space at 1384 State St. by the property’s landlord into a single apartment.